Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) is a broadband access technology widely applied in broadband access of home users. Through various applications based on the broadband access technology, a home user can obtain different types of services provided by different service providers, for example, Voice on Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV). Therefore, the home user needs to have various IP-based terminal devices. The application terminals based on an IP network and applied at home are known as Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) in the DSL Forum. The DSL Forum also stipulates that the CPE is configured and managed at the network side to make the CPE work normally and reduce the work of the user in configuring and managing the CPE. The network entity for configuring and managing the CPE may be an Automatic Configuration Server (ACS). The ACS may modify and set the parameters in the CPE through Remote Procedure Call (RPC).
With emergence of new services, a single user subscribes to a variety of services provided by different service providers. In a home network, broadband network access terminals are connected to CPEs managed by the ACSs of different service providers, for example, Set Top Box (STB) and VoIP phone. To enable the CPEs connected to the terminal access devices to work normally, the ACSs of different service providers need not only to manage the service devices such as STB and VoIP phone, but also to configure and manage the terminal access devices, for example, configuring the NAT mapping, setting Quality of Service (QoS), and performing cross authentication. Therefore, the terminal access devices such as Home Gateway (HGW) need not only to accept configuration and management provided by the access service provider, but also to accept configuration and management provided by the service provider. That is, a single home HGW needs to be configured and managed by different ACSs.
In the process of developing the present invention, the inventor finds at least the following problems in the prior art:
The prior art does not enable multiple servers of multiple service providers to configure and manage the same CPE. The CPE may be a terminal device such as an HGW.